Grief Grows With Each Of 7 Burials

Survivor's Emotions Spill Out As Hundreds Attend Services For Victims Of Burbank Fire

The agony of burying the father and children killed in the weekend fire in Burbank became only more unbearable in the repetition.

One by one, seven caskets-five blue-gray and full length, two white and tiny-traveled in a sea of mourners' arms Tuesday from the funeral home into six hearses, with the two white coffins fitting snugly in one hearse.

They were removed from each hearse and carried into a Bridgeview mosque, returned to the hearses for the procession to the cemetery, and lowered individually by a crane into crypts that lay side by side in a gaping hole in the ground.

The sight of the crane placing the concrete lids onto the crypts in achingly deliberate fashion was too much for Saleh Mohammed, 18, the son and brother of the victims and the man whom police on Monday had labeled as a suspect in the fire.

He turned from his crouched position-where he had been sobbing loudly throughout the burial-and burst through the crowd of mourners, staggered away several yards and wound up prostrate on the damp grass of Parkholm Cemetery in La Grange Park as a group of men tried to console him.

Hundreds of family members and friends in the Arabic community said goodbye to Abdulla Yaffai, 62, and six of his children: Mohamed Mohammed, 16, Aneece Mohammed, 14, Zain Mohammed, 13, Hanan Mohammed, 8, Gaze Mohammed, 5, and Qassem Mohammed, 3.

All seven were killed when a fire tore through their Burbank house early Saturday. Yaffai's wife, Fatima Ahmed, 40, escaped the blaze with her husband's assistance and was discharged Tuesday afternoon from Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park.

Huda Sahadad, 21, Saleh Mohammed's wife, also escaped, fleeing through a garage door near her basement bedroom. Mohammed has said he was at a cousin's home when the house caught fire.

Investigators characterized the blaze as arson and the deaths as homicides after finding a chemical accelerant in the basement and living room.

Burbank police named the couple as suspects Monday night, noting that Sahadad was the last person awake in the house before the blaze. The two have denied any involvement to the police and have not been arrested or charged.

Rouhy Shalabi, a Chicago attorney acting as the family's spokesman, said the couple are scheduled to be questioned again on Wednesday by the Burbank police.

Authorities had no comment on the investigation's progress, except that the house has been turned back to the family.

At Southwest Chapels Funeral Home in Bridgeview, the hundreds of mourners included dozens of friends and relatives visiting from New York state as well as the children's schoolmates, who sat in a separate visitation.

For the adult service, most of which was in Arabic, the men stood shoulder to shoulder filling one parlor as women in veils sat across the hall keeping watch on the coffins. Shalabi asked the men not to "point fingers. . . . Please be patient. Do not come to judgments."

Earlier, Saleh Mohammed paid his respects, pausing in front of each of the coffins and stopping at the small casket of his youngest brother. He stood with head bowed, running a thumb back and forth over the top of the coffin, then slumped over it until a crowd of men helped him out to the hallway.

During the service, Mohammed stood toward the back, then moved up front and spoke to the group in Arabic. He spoke about how his father was a good man who was respected by those who knew him, and he paid tribute to his brother Mohamed before being overcome by emotion, Shalabi said.

Sahadad also was in attendance, leaving the funeral home hidden beneath the capes and veils of a cluster of women who yelled, "Go away!" to photographers. Sahadad, who had given birth to a daughter Saturday night, also was seen at the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview but not at the cemetery.

Harb Ibrahim, 18, a family friend from Burbank, didn't believe family members could be involved in the fire. "Anything is possible, I mean, but a son can't do that," he said. "He just can't-especially in this religion, especially in the Muslim religion."

Adlai Shalabi, a Chicago attorney and Rouhy Shalabi's brother, said the uncertainty has created tension in the Arab-American community.

"It's a very volatile time right now," he said at the cemetery. "We have to be really careful how we approach this" because if a family member is accused of murder, "it could lead to more violence."

Sue Dotson, a neighbor, said Burbank remains in a state of shock. "Everybody's talking about it, yet it seems like nobody really wants to say their feelings on it," she said. "I just want to find out who did it, that's all, and I want to know why. I'm sure that's everybody's question."